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As 2022 comes to an end, we pick at the scab of the untapped potential of Jodie Whittaker's Doctor in her final Doctor Who adventures.

Amarynth's English translation of an article by ATRcons.

A true pioneer Baba Wawa passed away yesterday at the age of 93. When I was young I thought of her as one of the hosts of the Today Show and one of the only female broadcast journalists in the early days. It was only later that I came to realize that she was a particularly talented interviewer who took no prisoners. One example: She ended her inspiring career by inventing a new daytime TV genre of women talking about politics and current events in a freewheeling round table format at The View. It makes me happy that she lived such a long and accomplished life. RIP Baba. Update: I had never seen this until today. What a send-off.

I just wanted to check in and thank you once again for your kind support this year. It is greatly appreciated. There’s a lot of competition out there so it really means the world to me that you value what we do here enough to help keep it going. I’m going to leave this up until the end of the year in case any of you just stopped by and want to throw a little something our way. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday week (and that none of you are flying on Southwest!) Cheers — digby

A thing I don't think is appreciated enough is that most of what we call "tech" really isn't. Everything requires people programming the computers now. "Silicon Valley rich guys throwing money at it" doesn't make it tech. "Uber, but for buses" and all those things aren't really "tech" in the year of our Gritty, 2022. Ponzi schemes aren't "tech." Putting hamburgers on the blockchain doesn't make it "tech."

Maybe no precise definition, but "tech" in this sense does seem to entail some level of innovation beyond, "a new product idea, but with smartphones."

Happy New Year 2023 

For over twenty years, Mike has worked as a cleaner on Britain’s railways. Every day he commutes into London, helping to clean carriages on the intercity train that travels from Edinburgh to London. The job involves filling the trains with water for a deep clean, cleaning the exterior front of the train, and sanitising the […]

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To be fair, it only REALLY starts to get bad once you have conscious, feeling life forms.

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The circus is in town Politico reports that Hunter’s laptop is only the beginning. The wingnuts holding the Speakership hostage want to establish a “Church Committee” to examine the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the federal government. I kid you not: While the Republican leader and soon-to-be committee chairs have already lined up a laundry list of investigations that will largely command the House GOP’s agenda next year, it’s not enough for some McCarthy critics. Some of those opposing and on the fence about the Californian’s speakership bid want him to start a new panel, one that could direct probes against the entities they’ve castigated for years, including the FBI, theJustice Department, theIRS and Anthony Fauci. Further complicating McCarthy’s position is that other Republicans aren’t on board. Some of his allies are skeptical that such a select committee wouldn’t severely overlap with the investigative plans that incoming chairs such as Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and James Comer (R-Ky.) have already worked on for months.

Happy New Year and thank you for subscribing to The Lens. It’s truly an honor to share this forum with you. I look forward to delivering a lot more content in the new year as this becomes the primary outlet for my research and writing. I also hope you’ll consider using Substack’s new

Pope Benedict died. I remember when he became pope he was a bit controversial (they all are, of course, to someone, but a bit more controversial than that) and the "word" was that oh no big deal he's sick he'll die soon anyway so don't worry about it. Then he resigned for reasons never quite clearly explained in 2013 (yes everyone can tell you why, but not *really* why) and lived to be 95.

For years, scientists have tried to discover why men are attracted to female breasts. (Thanks to pharmaross)

Off-Duty FDNY Firefighter Urinates in Religious Hut (Thanks to Unholy Slacker, who notes that we cannot post this item because of the blog's Strict Policy regarding names)

2022 has been a difficult year. It’s been a year of spiralling costs and growing fear, particularly as the heatwave of summer descended into the winter and warm banks have appeared across the country. It’s been a year of three prime ministers, in which the government has proved the only thing that can keep it […]

If you can find a reflection The U.S. Department of Justice and Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis may ultimately judge Donald Trump by the content of his character as expressed in federal and state crimes. Failing at that, perhaps history will judge him by the company he keeps. Trump simply applied gold leaf to his tinpot. Business Insider: Ennemi du peuple was used to refer to those who disagreed with the new French government during the “Reign of Terror,” a period during which thousands of revolutionairies were executed by guillotine. Jose Diaz, Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party (Report to Central Committee, 1937): “The main enemy of the people in the rearguard are the Trotskyists: they are the bitterest enemies of our cause, the direct agents of Franco in our ranks.” Joseph Goebbels (1941): If someone wears the Jewish star, he is an enemy of the people.

“They offer nothing and destroy everything”. Dangers for Sierra Leone’s people are growing – but the drivers of the situation will not be unfamiliar to UK readers Skwawkbox has received the article below, written by a Sierra Leonean journalist whose name is withheld because of the risk of reprisals. For me the year 2022 has […]

Collected by 95 home dryer vent cleaning franchisees of Dryer Vent Wizard International, the company set the Guinness World Record for largest dryer lint ball collected, with a respectable 690 pound mound. They then had a group of firefighters from...

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A Clovis man was arrested by New Mexico State Police on Tuesday after he allegedly dropped what appeared to be feces through a mail slot at New Mexico State Police headquarters in Clovis. (Thanks to Alklali Bill, who says "You've...

If aliens contact humanity, who decides what we do next? (Thanks to Rod Nunley)

You made it through another year If you have gone from cheering the arrival of the New Year to being thankful you survived the last, join the club. Yet many, including the proprietress here, have considered the unexpected accomplishments of the Biden administration this last year. Digby wrote on Friday that she did not see Dark Brandon coming: I think some of this success, paradoxically, is because Joe Biden is our oldest president, not in spite of that fact. There’s a certain YOLO quality to many people his age which he seems to have channeled into a willingness to take calculated risks that have largely paid off. Dark Brandon’s seen it all — he doesn’t scare easily. Biden reminds audiences, repeatedly and forcefully, “It’s never been a good bet to bet against America!” Even among progressive activists (including this one), Biden’s unabashed America boosterism is sometimes cringe-inducing. While glass-half-empty cynics, the nihilists, the MAGAs, the QAnon cultists, and the fascism-curious gnaw like Teredo worms at the nation’s pilings, Biden is still betting on America. Unashamedly fighting the shameless.

"Dragonfire" is an underrated BBC Doctor Who story that introduced many of the tropes that the revival has taken up since 2005.